Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's 1818 novel — about scientist Victor Frankenstein who creates a creature from body parts and abandons him — the founding text of science fiction and the first novel to explore the ethics of scientific creation.

Creates science fiction and the creator's responsibility theme — Frankenstein is the first novel to ask whether science's ability to create implies a moral responsibility to care for what it creates; Frankenstein's abandonment of his creation (rather than the creature's violence) is the novel's central moral horror; this makes it the foundational text for AI ethics as well as science fiction.